G-SPAT

Reeling, seething and post-election blues
Grace Bandoy

It’s almost a month from the May 14 elections and yet I can’t seem to get over my mayor losing over a young, wealthy guy hehehe. I’m still hung over the election results, still disappointed, still mad (really mad), and still filled with disgust.

But hey, I’ll probably get over it soon, I hope. Well as if I’m not pissed enough that the people I rooted for didn’t make the election cuts, what’s really making me boil into explosion right now is the pu+@#*ang usok ng mga smoke belchers in Baguio.

One hundred percent of vehicles in Baguio are smoke belchers, even the so-called luxury fu#*ing cars and shitty new model SUV’s are spewing poisonous smoke causing lung cancer to all of us poor people inhaling them.

And all the pun*#!tang jeep and taxis I ride on are no exceptions. Isn’t it alarming that the cases of lung cancer in non-smoking individuals in our country are soaring? Second hand smoke they say is more fatal than smoke breathed in by the smokers themselves, just imagine the amount of smoke you inhale everyday when you ride a jeepney going to work or school and when you’re walking the streets.

It’s not a wonder anymore that the lifespan of urban dwellers is way, way shorter than those living in more environmentally-friendly areas. City-dwellers die younger than those living in Mount Napulawan.

It’s not only the food we eat, our contaminated water, our materialistic lifestyles, it’s also (I mean it plays a huge part) all these deadly smoke we inhale everyday into our body systems.

The departments of Transportation and Communication, Environment and Health should do something about this. We cannot just stand here and acquire lung cancer involuntarily, against our will and become unhealthy when we can live better.

My father died of too much smoking and I swore off cigarettes and hated the smell of cigarettes ever since. I was even really passionate of putting up an anti-smoking crusade because the DOH dumped their yosi kadiri program already. But when you’re a person earning minimum wage and can hardly support your own material whims, putting up crusades and foundations and doing humanitarian work is shelved until you win the lottery even if as I say you are passionate about it.

But these vehicle smokes I swear to God are really triggering me to do the unthinkable. Like I don’t care if I die trying sending all these smoke belchers running to their mamas crying! We should all be concerned of our health. It’s the one thing we can do something about. Health is wealth so let’s make Baguio people live longer. And let’s make a difference in this world with our minimum wages, having healthy lungs can’t wait. Email: grazerb@yahoo.com, text 0918-926-3382